joy in turning negatives into positives

Yesterday's post about making ax heads float yielded some positive comments, and , in themselves, like so much of my experience on this blog, is a very positive experience coming out of sharing negatives. There is much healing for me in writing about things, then more healing in getting feedback on how what I have shared has helped others. Let alone all the healing that has already come in my life that I also share about, and the healing of knowing even as I write that God is working in and through all that I do and say to bring further healing. This reminds me of my massage therapist's comment on exercise yesterday. "The body is made for movement", she said. So of course exercise will help so much more when we have aches and pains, yet it is often what we avoid. Reflecting, writing and sharing are forms of mental, emotional and spiritual exercise. I am so grateful for them, and that this is something that I enjoy doing, and find easy to do. Another way that I am working on turning negatives into positives is going over, with the help at times of people at the Employment Resource Centre, my various job experiences and doing the find and name the transferable skill thing. That process is complicated but revealing and helpful. I am also amazed to discover how much experience and expertise I have, and am almost overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the helpers there. I am the one holding back from pushing ahead too quickly into looking for other forms of work because I want to feel solid and steady on my "feet", in balance and really knowledgeable about myself. For me that can mean many things, but a big part of what it means is that I know deep within myself that I have to have worked through my negatives and really found my success stories and worked with myself so that I can describe my experience without too much self putdown, and at the same time be realistic about what are good fits for me. While these processes are taxing and exacting they are also freeing and empowering, like exercise. They can get the equivalent of endomorphins going that are released with physical exercise. To push into doing them is like the push against bad patterns with physical things - lack of exercise, routine, bad habits. The inertia built up with these can put up such a block that we can believe we can never face them, or change. Like facing the junk in our basements and secret places in our homes, and in our lives. If we remember that there is energy released in facing these monsters, and then encourage ourselves with small signs of progress, and surround ourselves with people who will continue to encourage us on these journeys, then we will have more joy in our experience of turning negatives into positives, and in the process turn even more negatives into positives, and so on we go, as God leads and heals and restores, open doors and sends His beams of light and His breath of life into our whole beings and lives. Having a single eye (which I blogged about a few days ago) is about moving toward our whole beings being full of light. Turning negatives into positives is about bringing light into our own darkness. So let us gain or regain our singleness of vision and apply it to ourselves and all that needs healing within, not just think of it in terms of what is "out there" or some great mighty spiritual quest that God would put us on for His kingdom!!!His quest is to make us whole, and full of light and life, so that we are effective in His kingdom, which is also within us. As we become whole, we bring wholeness to others, and so His kingdom spreads. I believe He wants us to have joy now, with each negative that gets turned, each piece of junk that gets sorted, each treasure and talent, (ax-head) that gets restored...and so we, like the angels in heaven rejoicing over the newly rescued sinners, can rejoice over ourselves in the newly rescued and restored parts of our beings.